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Wednesday, 31 December 2014

It is easy to get an overview of my knitting thanks to Ravelry. This year I completed 18 knits and 1 crochet project, a small basket. I have done quite well compared to last year when I finished 11 projects. I am most happy with four sweaters I knitted, two for me and two for my daughter. I love them all, I do not have a favourite sweater.

I am a bit unhappy about not finishing the Haapsalu scarf. The body of the scarf is ready but I haven't brought myself to casting on hundreds of stitches for the edge lace. I promise myself to get it done during next spring.

Tuesday, 30 December 2014

It's time to look back on the year 2014. During the year I have sewn up five tops, three dresses and two
skirts for myself and I have sewn a sweater for R. Also I sewed curtains,
cushions and fabric flowers for my living room. Towards the end of the year I
sewed around twenty or more infinity scarves using ten or more different
fabrics. I loved each of the patterns but kept just two of them and the rest of
the scarves were sold or given as gifts.

All my tops and dresses were sewn in knitted fabrics using relatively
easy patterns. Next year I would like to improve my sewing skills and I hope to
sew more in woven fabrics, despite my love of knits. My other target is to sew
up some complicated patterns. I am thinking about sewing a lined jacket and I even
bought a class from Craftsy to learn the necessary techniques.

The other knit is a cowl which I call
my fake Burberry. I got inspired by
this cowl but I didn’t want it to be in garter stitch, so I made some
changes. I had a vision of how I would like it to be, big squares in a
stockinette stitch and the lines in garter stitch to wave in contrasting
colours. Unfortunately my idea didn’t work out as I couldn’t get weaving right.
I wanted the cowl to have some stretch in it like knits do, but then the
weaving started puckering out which wasn’t very nice. So I decided to
crochet vertical lines in contrasting colour instead.

Friday, 26 December 2014

Whilst contemplating for an idea what to get for Xmas for my darling R,
I stumbled upon a lovely soft and woolly knitted fabric. I got an idea to sew it
up into a lovely sweater. I looked for a suitable pattern from a few Burda
Style magazines I own but I couldn't find any. So I started to search on the
internet but there wasn’t too many patterns for men available. Finally I found
a zip-front pulloverpattern from the Sew
Daily website. The pattern is free to download but it contains the pattern
pieces only. The instructions are published in the magazine which I don't have.
I was a bit worried about sewing a zipper closure into the placket. I
wanted to get all sewing done by the sewing machine and avoid hand sewing for
more professional look. I was lucky enough to get good instructions for sewing
the zipper closure from my Facebook Sewing group.

Thank you so much,
Helle!

I found the pattern itself quite good and I could certainly use it
again. Some parts of the lines were missing though but nothing significant. I
assumed that seam allowances were added to the pattern. The neckline is quite
small so I cut it wider to about 2 cm. The shoulder seams do not sit on the top
of the shoulder, they are designed to lean to the front, because of the back
pattern piece given is longer than the front. There wasn't any given lining for
the top of the back of the pattern, so I added it to finish off the collar
seam. It was first time I used a pdf pattern and it is definitely a
quick way to get a pattern though I’m not so sure how I liked taping all the
pages together.

I am quite pleased how the sweater turned out as it was a secret sew. I just
had some measurements from another sweater as a guide. As there was a potential
to fail with my Xmas gift, I got tickets toWar Horseas additional gift.

Sunday, 14 December 2014

A
few days ago, I showed you the Xmas gift I received from Lotte Vanaema. Now I
will show you what I made for Hiiremamma in return. I decided not to knit
anything for her as she herself is a knitter, so I decided to sew an infinity
scarf for her. To that I added a small selection of knitter’s aids, stitch
markers, sock blockers and needle protector pouches which are handy for storing
WIPs on DPNs. The pouches come in two lengths; for 15cm DPNs and 20cm double
point needles. I also added some sweets and a Xmas card.

Wednesday, 10 December 2014

I am totally blown away by the generosity of Lotte vanaema who sent me this amazing gift during Christmas gift swap held in Estonian handicraft forum Isetegija! The decorated box and an album are handmade by her!Thank you so much!I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Saturday, 6 December 2014

When Boknits were looking for test knitters in January this
sweater caught my eye with it’s interesting pattern combination and raglan
lines. It is knitted in my favourite way, from top to bottom in one piece. For the
yarn, I chose Drops Baby Alpaca Silk, which I doubled to get the correct gauge.
I have knit raglan from top down before, but this time I struggled a little bit
to set it up and get going. In order to get the pattern to run, I had to follow
a number of different patterns pieces and increases. Finally I took the
descriptions and a new Excel spreadsheet and drew up a chart to get an idea of
what was going on and after the first ten rows the knitting went quite
smoothly.

Looking at the other testers ongoing sweaters, I decided
that I wanted my sweater to be a bit longer.
However after blocking, it turned out to be too long, the garter stitch
and a holy pattern stretched it greatly in length. This was the reason for not
posting about the sweater earlier but now I have taken it and ripped it back a
good 10 cm. The winter is here again and I can finally start to wear the
sweater and I love it!

Wednesday, 12 November 2014

I had a piece of black and white knitted fabric in my stash and
I was looking for a sewing pattern to sew a top for myself. I noticed the bat
wing sleeved top pattern number 113 from the Burda Style magazine 9/2013 and in
this edition it is sewn into a lace fabric. The blouse is not seen very clearly
from the photo, as a fashion model keeps a child on her hip, which conceals the
side of the body and the model’s long hair concealing her shoulder. Anyway, I
decided to test this pattern and maybe the batwing sleeves might be suitable
for me. The sleeves are designed to be longer than normal, and I did not
shortened them. I will probably wear the top so that I pull the sleeves up and maybe
I should probably hold my hands on hips all the time ;-) My only addition to
the pattern is the wide neckline facing in black satin.

I needed a lighter scarf for the Autumn so picked a piece of
blue flowered georgette from my stash and sewed it into an infinity scarf with
a little twist in it, a so-called Moebius scarf. The idea became so pleasant,
that I rushed to the store to equip myself with fabrics and rattled off a
number of the scarves but I’m not going to show all of them. There are
different ways to wear the scarf; it can hang freely, you can wrap it twice
around the neck or pull it over your head. Multifunctional!

Sunday, 2 November 2014

There isn't a lot to say about my new design. I am really happy how it turned out. The cardigan
is knitted in one piece from the top to the bottom with knit on button bands and the body is slightly shaped. The only thing that I am not quite happy with, is
uneven stockinette fabric, which is due to the different tension I get when knitting across the front and purling back. I tend to purl looser than I knit and I guess I have to work on it. I have searched for some good advice on how to achieve a uniform surface. Do you have the same problem and how do you deal with it?

The sleeves are knitted from the top down picking up
stitches around the armhole with short row shaping. I have discovered a trick
here what works for me. Have a look at the illustration, usually it is recommended to
start picking up stitches for the sleeve from the bottom of the armhole in
point 1. I like to start picking up stitches from the point 3 (where I start
knitting the short rows). In this case, it is not necessary to knit the second row
from 1 to 3, and both sides of the sleeve will look the same.

Monday, 13 October 2014

Time and time again I have travelled past the Blakemere Craft Village and always think to myself that one day, I will turn in and have
a look.

Recently I finally had the chance to check it out and
after having a look round what I have to say is ‘more crafts please’.

Some years ago I visited a candle store in a small Danish
village which was completely filled with locally made candles of different
shapes and scents. There was a workshop where visitors could dip their own
candles in the permanently hot cauldron of paraffin wax.

Fortunately I did manage to see one real artisan who was
working in the craft village and selling his output. Ray from the Glass Beadand Marble workshop made these colourful beads which have become my new
earrings.

I also got the hematite pendants from Ray, the lovely
elephants and the long wavy ones to which I have added white beads (actually,
these are buttons from Coats).

There is a lovely coffee shop on the site in which we had
lovely coffee and a huge slice each of coffee and walnut cake. The coffee was
served in cute cups and saucers from the PiP Studio Collection range of goods
which the coffee shop stocks and sells.

Thursday, 9 October 2014

I wanted to use up all leftover yarn from Mariusgenser and knitted toe-up socks, using the same pattern. I knitted until I ran out of blue and red yarn, just a bit of white still left over. Keep your toes warm!Ravelry

During the summer an advert for an upcoming exhibition of knitwear caught my eye. Called Knitwear – Chanel to Westwood, it was being held in the London Fashion and Textile Museum.

The title referred to knitwear in high fashion from the worlds catwalks.

Fortunately I had a need to go to London so I was able to schedule a visit to the Museum.

During my visit I discovered that the exhibits are from the private collection of Mark and Cleo Butterfield (some of the pictures are from their blog).

I have to admit that my expectations were a bit greater than what was exhibited as I was not expecting to see items sewn from knit fabric. There was also hand knitted items on show.

However the display of colourful fair-isle patterned vests are certainly worth seeing but I was hoping to find a bit more inspiration for my new knits.

Much more interesting was an exhibition called Visionary Knitwear which was on at the same time. It was a showcase of bold visions of contemporary fashion knitwear celebrating the work of new British graduate designers and gave them an opportunity to let their fantasies fly.

There are some pictures I have taken (below Estonian text), however the pictures are a bit poor as I took them on my phone.

About Me

I am an Estonian lady living, knitting and designing knitwear in UK.
I even can’t remember when I learnt to knit. My mum knitted socks and mittens, so did my granny and my great auntie liked to knit lace tops in fine cotton thread. My daughter knitted socks, mittens and several sweaters when in high school. I hope one day she will pick up knitting again as she’s got lots of great knitting books to inherit. I prefer reference books to pattern books, they are so inspirational. I love to design my own patterns and I have started to write them down now. Most of my patterns get test knitted. If there are any problems, please feel free to contact me.
Happy knitting!